Subscription Membership
AOA costs money to run - servers and bandwidth does not grow on trees, contrary to popular rumour. In the past, we have accepted donations on an 'ad-hoc' basis, grateful for each and every donation made. However, there comes a time when we need to be more organised than ad-hoc donations allowed us to be. We took the decision to implement a subscription system based around Paypal.

Subscription Benefits
Recognising that those who choose to subscribe would like to see something in return, we have implemented some features specifically just for subscribers. At the current point in time, these features include:

Disabling all but the top advert banner to free up the width of the page for the forum.

Custom Titles! You choose what you want your title to be - no more plain "member"!

Access to the Staff and Subscribers topic, allowing Subscribers to influence the development of AOA.

The Small Print
Access to the Staff and Subscribers topic is afforded to subscribers, so that we might have the benefit of their advice. Whilst AOA is not bound to follow that advice, we strive to understand the concerns and preferences of our members. We find having such input useful in making those decisions that confront the Admin team from time to time. Needless to say, the decisions made on AOA's behalf fall to the Admin team to make. With this decision, we are making a real effort to take into consideration the views and feelings of those who care most about AOA. Those who have the time and willingness to consider her future and support her financially.

As always, the normal rules of behavour on AOA apply to the Staff and Subscribers topic. Those who join and cannot properly restrain themselves will face the same banning as any other user who violates the rules. In the event that a subscribing member has to be banned NO REFUNDS will be offered or given for fees paid. Subscriber membership in the Subscriber Topic is a privilege, not a right. To abuse a privilege is to lose it.

There are some restrictions on the custom titles. As this is a family-friendly forum, swearing/cussing and other words that are normally unacceptable in posts will also be considered unacceptable in custom titles. Additionally, you cannot use the custom title to imply any level of staff access. For example "M4d Sk1llz )vercl0ck3r" is acceptable, but "Chief Engineer" is not. The final decision as to the acceptablity of a custom title lies with the admin team.

Cancelling a subscription
Whilst we'd hope you wouldn't want to cancel a subscription, there may be times when it is not appropriate to continue the subscription. To cancel the subscription, you need to log into your Palpal account and cancel the subscription from there. Your subscriber status on AOA will continue until the end of the time period paid up.

Unfortunately due to the costs incurred we cannot provide any refunds for subscriptions already paid. All decisions from the AOA admin team are final.

__________________ Any views, thoughts and opinions are entirely my own. They don't necessarily represent those of my employer (BlackBerry).

We reserve the right to enforce the spirit of the following rules as we see fit:

All posts are to be composed in such a manner that respects persons of all races religions cultures and sexualities. No post may contain personal attacks, as they have no proper place in debate. The purpose of this forum is to facilitate growth, not to belittle others.

The posting of obscene content is prohibited. No user may refer other users to outside content of an obscene nature. No pornographic content may be inserted in to any post. The use of harsh language (swearing, cussing, and cursing) is prohibited.

No user may use this system to promote or engage in any illegal activity. No user may refer other users to outside content that promotes illegal activity. The illegal sharing of copyrighted material is prohibited. No user shall promote the disabling of anti-piracy technology, or provide information that will enable others to disable anti-piracy technology.

By posting or uploading content to AOA Forums, you acknowledge and agree that such content becomes the property of AOA Forums, to be used and managed as we see fit. You further stipulate that you have the right to post or upload such content, as understood under the Berne Convention and the Copyright Laws of the United States. (Basically, you are saying that you are the owner/creator of the content, or that you have the permission of the owner/creator, or that it is permitted under 'Fair Use' doctrine.)

Any content posted under 'Fair Use' MUST have proper credit given as to the source. Note also that 'Fair Use' does NOT permit you to post the entire contents of someone else's work (such as a book or article), only enough to give the reader an idea of what the original content is about. Failure to do so may result in the removal of the post, and such further action as deemed necessary, including suspension of posting privileges and banning from the forum.

No user may post or upload any content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party. AOA reserves the right to notify the relevant parties and/or authorities, including but not limited to police, copyright agencies, ISPs and upstream providers.

No user may advertise any product or service on this system. Unsolicited references to content not owned by aoaforums.com is prohibited.

Some sections of AOA's Forums may have additional rules. Any additional rules will be stated in a post at the top of the section. Failure to comply with these additional rules may result in the termination of your account, or the termination of access to the sections in question.

AOA permits members to display personal banners provided that they do not link to or advertise any service, product or site. These banners may be a maximum of 340pixels wide by 42 pixels high and 10Kb in size. This space is offered purely for self expression however all rules governing propriety stated elsewhere also apply here. AOA reserves the right to delete or amend any personal banners that are felt to not meet the spirit of the forums. This service may be withdrawn with no notice.

Where permission is sought in advance AOA may allow some linkage to another site that AOA considers to be of particular service to our membership. This is entirely at AOA's discretion and is not an automatic right.

AOA has the right to terminate or suspend your use of any AOA sites, effective immediately and without prior notice, in the event of any conduct by you which AOA, in it's sole discretion, considers to be unacceptable, or for conduct that AOA believes is a violation of these rules. AOA reserves the right to deny registration of any individual and thus deny any individual access to any AOA sites.

Member Post recognition - Or - A Zoological approach to post count

Everyone likes a pat on the back...No one likes to feel left out!

Our reptiles are our way of recognizing continuing participation without placing so much importance upon post count that a new member feels left out or unappreciated.

We hope you will find them a friendly way of saying thank you for joining AOA and staying on the help the next guy.

Newt = <250 posts

Gecko = 250 posts

Salamander = 500 posts

Iguana = 1000 Posts

Komodo Dragon = 2000 posts

Lounge lizard = Staff

T-Rex = Admin

Not all AOA Forum features or Topics are immediately available to new users. Access to "User Control Panel", personal message and some topics are slightly delayed for security reasons, mostly to keep rip offs and spamers off the boards.

All features are available after 25 posts, some much sooner.

Edit by Gizmo: Add content copyright section

__________________"Though all men live in ignorance before mystery,
they need not live in darkness...
Justice is foundation and Mercy ETERNAL."
DKE"All that we do is touched by Ocean
Yet we remain on the shore of what we know."
Richard Wilbur